Wednesday, July 26, 2006

No wonder Kofi Annan blasted Israel for its attack on a UN station yesterday. CNN is reporting that UN observers placed 10 calls to the IDF in the time before the attack telling the IDF that the bombing was coming too close.

Then there is the fact that the IDF had to know the UN Station was there because they had flown over it many times over the last 6 years. Israel is denying that it purposely bombed the UN station. Like the US denying rendition, they think if they say it enough, people will believe it.

I say they did it to nix any possibility of a UN force being sent to the border region of Southern Lebanon. Of course, that isn't necessary considering that the US and UK would most likely veto any UNSC attempt to draw up a force.

In an interview on NPR this morning, former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said that he doubted that they would be able to get an UN Force strong enough to do the job because no one has enough troops to donate to the cause. Interesting arguement and one that I find questionable.

Turkish news is reporting that pressure is being put on them to donate the troops to a UN force in Lebanon. Turkey is refusing, saying that they are already over extended in Afghanistan. What they aren't saying, and what I think is being planned, is future operations in Northern Iraq.

Guys, we may have a version of WWIII brewing here. It won't be like past wars- where you have 5-6 years of fighting followed by calm. This war will have no winners and will be cumulative over several years. It will be like battling brush fires, all in close proximity with non-conventional forces.

Here is the link to the actual UN peacekeeping force press release . They remark that they had repeatedly warned the Israelis that they were shelling UN positions. However, in the interest of fairness, let us also point out that UN positions have been shelled by Hezbollah as well but the Hezbollah ordinance failed to explode. From the UN press release this seems like a situation where the UN is getting repeatedly cought in the cross fire between both sides.

On a side note, what is "Common Dreams?" The link in the original post to "CNN" takes us to "Common Dreams."

Common Dreams, as you can tell from looking at it, is an independant website that pulls articles from various publications and commentators, usually leaning left (i.e. progressive). If you click around, you will find commentary from Molly Ivins, Norman Solomon, Eric Alterman, Ralph Nader, etc. You will also find articles from mainline newspapers, blogs, etc. Explore it. You can see for yourself.